AFTERMATH OF WAR

The Times
August 7, 2009
UK

Neither Russia nor Georgia won last year’s conflict, which has
paralysed the region

Recommend?

A year after the summer war that erupted in the Caucasus while the rest
of the world was watching the Beijing Olympics, Russia and Georgia are
on high alert. Each side accuses the other of stoking the tensions,
deliberate provocations and seeking to relaunch hostilities. Each
seeks to blame the other for starting the fighting and to justify
its own actions as self-defence. And each is now seeking, by vigorous
propaganda, to overcome the lasting damage that the war has left on
its image and on the trust in its leadership.

In the uneven contest, Russia initially won a swift victory. Moscow,
increasingly angered by Georgia’s overt hostility to its larger
neighbour, its pro-American stance, attempts to join Nato and series
of diplomatic snubs, set an ambush into which Georgia blundered. Daily
incidents provoked by separatists in South Ossetia goaded President
Saakashvili into a rash attempt to seize back control of this region
as well as Abkhazia, which had also thrown off rule by Tbilisi. The
Russians, however, were waiting. Their troops poured across into South
Ossetia, pushed back the Georgians and then occupied swaths of Georgian
territory. The fighting ended with a tense stand-off, mediation by
France and a subsequent Russian withdrawal to the two enclave s.

The aftermath was bitter. Nato froze relations with Moscow. The US
returned to the language and postures of the Cold War. President
Medvedev’s attempt to distance himself from his predecessor and
warm up relations with the West were stillborn. But Moscow gained
its aims. Other former Soviet republics chafing at Moscow’s attempt
to circumscribe them were intimidated. South Ossetia and Abkhazia
were effectively detached from Georgia. All talk of a swift Nato
entry for Ukraine and Georgia was quietly dropped. Confidence in Mr
Saakashvili’s political judgment was shaken, in Georgia and abroad.

Georgia also believes that it won a political victory. It forced
Washington to send warships to its coast in symbolic solidarity. It
rallied Western opinion against Russian bullying and won the sympathy
of others in the region. It united a fractious country behind President
Saakashvili. And it won assurances that the West would respond swiftly
to any fresh attack from Russia.

In truth, however, the war has been a disaster for both
countries. Russia has found it hard to shake off the image of a
bully and an aggressor. A solution to other "frozen conflicts" —
disputes such as Nagorno-Karabakh and Transdniestria left over from
the break-up of the Soviet Union — now looks farther away than
ever, bedevilled by mistrust of Moscow. And the vaunted attempt by
the new US Administration to press=2 0the reset button in relations
with Russia seems to have done little to warm up the poor relations
between Russia and its Western neighbours.

For Georgia, the cost of Mr Saakashvili’s hotheaded naivety has been
high. Political opposition has challenged his leadership and led to
accusations of human rights violations and electoral fraud. The country
faces a bill of at least $1 billion in reconstruction. Regaining South
Ossetia now looks a lost cause, as does Nato membership. The wounds
are raw, and the region remains volatile. United Nations monitors have
been forced to withdraw, but peace is nowhere in sight. The world was
caught unprepared by the conflict. But it was one that both sides lost.